Friday, January 14, 2011

The new man at RNC a headache for spellers

ISN'T IT JUST like those Republicans to elect a new national chairman with a name that figures to be their revenge against us slow-witted writers who can never remember such things as whether the "i" goes before the "e" or vice versa. Now we will have to overcome a sort of double jeopardy inasmuch as the new RNC boss, Reince Priebus, will have us Googling his name to decide whether "i" goes before the "e" in his surname rather than in the given name.

In school, we learned that it's always "i" before the "e" except after "c". It was not until my second year in college that I spelled seize and siege correctly without help from a "c", only to forget it later. Weird and wield were just as troublesome and often led me to the dictionary. But Reince Priebus ( I think I got it right) is not in the dictionary. I'll try to get it right from now on, but if I don't, I doubt that there are many people outside of RP's immediate family who will notice it. Michael Steele made life so much simpler.





















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